This application concerns various improvements in the field of telecine machines, and relates to various inventions concerned with improved operation of the machines. A telecine machine, often simply termed `a telecine`, is operative to generate a television signal or at least a video signal from cinematographic film.
There are now available two principal types of telecine machines which are of interest, namely the linear array type and the flying spot type. A linear array telecine has a linear array of light-sensitive elements, namely in the form of a charge coupled device (CCD), which provides a serial output representing a line of television signal at a time. The film is driven at a constant rate between the linear array and a light source in a direction substantially perpendicular to a plane containing the sensor array, and an optical system images an illuminated section of film on the sensor array. Such a telecine machine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,422.
The flying spot telecine has been available for many years and comprises an imaging CRT tube on which a spot is illuminated to provide a scanning light source for the film. A single sensor device is located on the other side of the film and an optical system collects the light which passes through the film and images it onto the sensor device.
With linear-array telecines, it has been proposed to include a digital store at the output of the telecine to convert non-standard signals from the sensor array into standard format. It has also been proposed to use digital stores with flying-spot scanning telecines.
The following description will initially be made with reference to a linear-array telecine. However the application of the principles described is not so limited and they can also be used with flying spot telecine machines, as is discussed in more detail below in the detailed description of a preferred embodiment.